How Much Should I Charge for Photography
Photography business pricing is one of the trickiest skills to master. Whether you’re just getting started as a portrait photographer or looking to grow your business and make more money, the pricing coaching and mentorship available at Photography Business Institute will help you understand how to price your session fees and create a profitable product list.
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You may be wondering, “How much should I charge for photography?” Pricing photography services can feel overwhelming. You know your business needs to bring in money, but a lack of experience or self-confidence can have you questioning your worth. Remember that profitability starts with creating value.
Creating Value for Your Photography
When you break it down, the value of a photography service is in what someone is willing to pay for that service. One way a boutique photographer builds value is through creating outstanding images and presenting them as enviable fine-art quality products. When a potential client sees customized artwork on the wall and decides that they want the same for their family, this adds to the value of the photographer’s work.
Another way to add value to your boutique photography business is through the client experience. The boutique business model we mentor photographers on at the Photography Business Institute focuses on holding your client’s hand throughout the entire process and educating them along the way about heirloom quality wall artwork. From the initial consultation to the in-person image presentation, boutique clients receive a full-service experience that is customized to each individual.
Balancing Craft and Income
To become a profitable photographer, it is important to balance the craft of photography with a focus on your income. When deciding what to charge for photography services, pricing should be based on your time spent, the local market, production costs, overhead, and the value of providing boutique services.
Brand new photographers will benefit from our 4-Week Camera to Cash Workshop. Here we go over the focused camera skills you need without the overwhelm and provide expert coaching feedback to give you the confidence you need to start charging for your photography sessions.
Once you’ve decided how much to charge for a photography session, it is critical to share your pricing confidently and have an answer to any questions or objections. Always remember your worth and the value you provide to your clients.
How to Set Pricing for Boutique Photography
A boutique portrait photographer should price a photography session based on their time and talent to complete the session only. This price will not include any products, digital files, or prints. The level of personal service provided by boutique photographers commands a higher price than what is offered by digital file or shoot-and-burn photographers. The purpose of the session fee is to reserve the time on your calendar. You want to set this price at one that is high enough that someone would think twice about no-showing.
It may be comforting to know that you’re not alone in asking the question, “How much should I charge for photography?” At Photography Business Institute, we’ve found photographers who undercut their session fees at every level. This happens when someone does not take into account the expenses of running a profitable business.
When you create a price list based on what your services are worth, you’ll find clients willing to invest more in the unique, high-quality experience of working with you. Keep in mind that you might not be your ideal client. If you can not personally afford something, it doesn’t mean that others won’t be able to.
Our coaching guides you through the process of educating your clients about the boutique photography experience and pricing your sessions for profitability. Get expert advice on your own portrait photography price lists. To get you started, here are some of our top tips for creating a better price list.
1. Visuals Sell
Clients want to buy what you show them. This is similar to when restaurants include mouth-watering, vivid images of food on the menu. When you are putting together your price list, keep this in mind. With each product listed, include a photograph next to the price and description. Professionally printed price lists will also have a higher impact than one from your home printer.
During in-person consultations, your clients will be more inclined to get excited about investing in wall art when they can see physical examples of what each product looks like in front of them. It is important to have samples of large, fine art portraits of your work that you present at in-person consultations. You want clients see the artworkl, and say, “I want that!”
2. Highest Price First
On any effective price list, the highest price should be listed first. If you think this would scare clients away, you’d be surprised. Placing the highest price first will anchor that price in the person’s mind, and every subsequent price will feel much smaller.
3. Rethink Your Numbers
$999.00 can look larger and more expensive than $999. Extra zeros and decimal points affect the way the client sees your pricing. Keep the numbers listed on your price list streamlined and simplified.
Similarly, rounding up prices to even, round numbers may be hurting you. Consumers will unconsciously interpret $499 to be significantly less than $500. Consider bringing each of your prices down a dollar to see if it has an effect on what products people invest in.
4. Consider Your Words
Boutique photographers need to choose their words carefully. Instead of using words like “spend” or “prints,” consider instead “invest” or “portraits.” The words you include on your price list should reflect a high-value boutique business brand.
5. Aim for Three
When creating product collections, it’s best to stick with three. These should be large, medium, and small investments. You don’t want your clients overwhelmed by too many options. Instead, do the work for them of narrowing down choices and presenting three worthy collections. Customizations and add-ons can always be accommodated later, but this is a great place to start.
Even better than offering product packages is an à la carte price list. Packages may make clients feel boxed in, and the boutique client experience is all about personalization and customization.
6. Include a Product You Don’t Intend to Sell
Similarly to anchoring your price list with the highest price at the top, creating a high-ticket product that you don’t necessarily plan on selling can help the rest of your products look more affordable. When creating this product, choose something that will still fit your branding and can help set you apart from your competition.
Photographers who work with the Photography Business Institute set themselves apart with the highest level of professionalism and client trust. Mentees learn how to make money with photography and how to justify boutique photography prices to satisfied clients.
Increase Your Portrait and Product Orders
Getting your print and product price list right will result in a natural increase in orders. However, to take product sales even further, here are a few strategies to consider:
1. Holding Back
As mentioned, boutique portrait photographers do not offer high-resolution digital images. Instead, what sets a boutique photographer apart from a digital file photographer is the design and creation of physical artwork from a client’s session.
Sometimes, boutique clients will still ask you for digital files to share on social media. In this case, rather than caving in on the high-resolution images, offer low-resolution photographs of any image they purchase as wall art that they can use for social media.
2. Incentivizing
Before every in-person ordering presentation, have an order total in mind that you’d like to meet. If the appointment is going well, but you haven’t quite reached your goal, offer an incentive. Maybe you have a special promotion that you’ve just remembered: a value-added incentive for clients who reach a certain investment.
Value-added incentives, rather than discounting, can add more value to your client’s order while still helping you reach your profit goals. Avoid discounting your services and products. Discounts will not help you attract your ideal clients and can position you as a lower-end photographer. For example, instead of discounting for holiday sessions, include a free set of printed cards for clients who book before a selected date.
Common Pricing Method Mistakes
Pricing is an area that many small businesses struggle with, and it is no different for portrait photographers. There are a few common ways that portrait photographers set their price lists.
1. Guessing
While just making big guesses about where your pricing should be is a terrible idea, it is something we see. When creating a price list, guessing shows that the photographer does not know the value of their work and time and hasn’t gone through their business costs. It should be obvious that pricing based on guesswork is not going to be profitable.
2. Competitor Based Pricing
Creating price lists based on your competitors’ actions is another way of unsuccessfully pricing your services and products. The truth is, you have no idea how successful your competitors are.
Also, your market will likely have very high-priced photographers and very low-priced photographers, and you’ll be guessing again about where your business fits in.
3. Cost-Based Pricing
Cost-based pricing is based on adding up all of the costs of doing business and then additionally adding the profit number you are aiming for to determine a price. With this method, mistakes can be made when photographers neglect to include their time, educational investments, and the value added by providing a boutique client experience.
How to Price a Portrait
Learning how to price your photography services, portraits, and products will have a huge impact on the success of your business. Let’s take a look at the process of pricing an individual printed portrait.
An 8×10 printed portrait is a product and a price point that clients may use to compare you to other photographers. Understanding the numbers and the math involved in pricing an 8×10 portrait will help you grow as a professional.
1. Understand the Boutique Business Model
Being a boutique photographer can help define your product pricing. Boutique portrait photographers do not offer cheap prints or digital image files. Instead, you provide fine art quality wall art that your clients won’t be able to find elsewhere.
The boutique business model also includes customized client experiences and time spent with each client. These extras should be considered when you’re setting portrait prices. If you go too low, you risk devaluing your own expertise and the client experience your business offers.
2. Calculate Your Costs
For example, the costs to you for producing an 8×10 portrait include obvious things like what you pay your print lab, but they also include many overlooked investments. These costs include labor, such as the time spent retouching images and placing orders, shipping fees, packaging, credit card processing fees, and more. Each of these costs, plus all of the other expenses that go into running a photography business, must be considered before you price any product.
It may seem overwhelming, but all of your fixed business costs, such as equipment, insurance, taxes, marketing, staff fees, etc., are also important in determining the price an printed piece of artwork. If you want a profitable, successful portrait photography business, you must make sure you’re charging enough for every product you sell.
Pricing Tools That Work
Your business profit is in your pricing. Creating a profitable, professionally designed price list will separate you from the competition. Every photographer, from beginners to seasoned professionals, know that pricing is one of the trickiest skills to get right. If you’re wondering how to make money as a stay-at-home mom or how to take your photography business to the next level, our business coaching, mentoring, and workshops can help.
Setting your portrait photography price list can be a complicated process. While your instincts may lead you to copy others or even guess the numbers, it is crucial to take the time to understand them. It can take years to study pricing strategies and get them right. Rather than do it all on your own, we can make things easier for you.
At Photography Business Institute you’ll find business guidance from our mentors and coaches. We will help you better understand the math behind calculating COGS (Costs of Goods Sold), selecting the most effective product collections, the psychology of numbers, and more. Sign up for business coaching today if you’re ready to find more success as a boutique portrait photographer.
